What must I do to be saved?

There is no greater question than this. Asked nearly 2000 years ago by a jail-keeper in Greece, it is of vital importance today. This simple and urgent question has a direct and profound answer: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 16.31).

To believe in Jesus unto salvation is to

Confess you are a sinner utterly unable to save yourself, justly deserving God's wrath, and wholly dependent upon God's mercy. This includes confessing the fact you are a sinner and also confessing specific sins.

Trust in Christ alone to take the penalty for your sin and also give you his perfect righteousness.

Obey God out of a new love for him knowing that your good works do not merit salvation but instead flow from gratitude for what he has done on your behalf and are "good" only in so far as you are united to Christ via his Spirit in you.

By way of explanation, we see contained in the main question are three very crucial related questions:

Who am I?
Why do I need to be saved?
What can I do?

First, you and I were created by almighty God. He made us and he owns us. Just like a potter has command over the clay so too does God have command over people to do with and expect of them what he will (see Romans 9). Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves (Psalm 100.3).

Second, you and I need to be saved because we are lost. We pursue our own desires according to what seems right to us rather than what God has said is right according to his perfect, holy, and just standard; we have strayed from the path of righteousness and rebelled against our maker. The end result is that we sin because we are sinners. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way (Isaiah 53.6).There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3.10-12).

Third, in and of ourselves we cannot do anything to rescue ourselves from this deviant and destructive path. In fact, we don't even want to change course because we enjoy our sin and willingly act on our evil desires. How can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Matthew 12.34). ...fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind (Ephesians 2.3).

True? Indeed. Sad? Yes. Hopeless? No.

The answer to the third point above hinted at a glimmer of hope. The Good News (i.e. The Gospel) is that God in Christ does for men what we could never do for ourselves. We cannot pay the penalty for our sin -- Christ takes his sheep's penalty upon himself; we could not establish our own righteousness -- Christ gives his righteousness to his beloved. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift! (2Corinthians 9.15) David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin (Romans 4.6-8).

What sweet news this is to the man who realizes he can never please God in the flesh. Redemption is not 50% our work and 50% Christ's work. It's not 25%/75%. It's not 10%/90%. It's zero from us and 100% from God. By faith we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3.5-7).

Won't you receive him today and rest from your futile labors, labors that are getting you no closer to him? Has God mercifully convinced you of your sin and misery? Has he graciously enlightened your mind in the knowledge of Christ? Has he powerfully renewed your will thereby persuading and enabling you to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to you in the Gospel? Believe on him -- his perfect life and victorious death -- because nothing else will satisfy the thirst of your soul.

Then you will be freed from the shackles of sin. Instead you'll be enslaved to Christ and begin to endeavor after new obedience.

When the Jewish authorities brought Jesus before Pilate (the civil ruler of the day) he asked Jesus, What is truth? (John 18.38)

Jesus had just said, To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice (John 18.37).

When Jesus said there are people “of the truth” who hear him he is also saying there are people who are not of the truth who don’t hear him. He made this point explicitly: Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil (John 8.43-44).

Pilate was not of the truth. Are you of the truth? Or are you of your father the devil? Strong words, I know, but those are God’s words and those are the two options he gives us.

Three Sources of Truth Compared

Christian

American

Mormon

The Word of God written, all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments and them only, are given by inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life (2Timothy 3.16).

The authority of the Bible depends not upon the testimony of any man or set of Church leaders, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof (2Peter 1.21); therefore it is to be received as it declares itself to be: the word of God (1Thessalonians 2.13).

Truth is variously defined: what ‘works’, what is ‘agreed upon’, what ‘creates peace’, etc.

‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts four books as scripture: the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrines & Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. These books are called the standard works of the Church. The words of our living prophets are also accepted as Scripture’ (Gospel Principles, LDS, p. 49).

‘But the Bible has been robbed of its plainness; … almost every verse has been corrupted and mutilated to the degree that scarcely any two of them read alike’ (The Seer, Pratt, p. 213).

God says his word is true and cannot fail:

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth (John 17.17).

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever (Isaiah 40.8)

There is no sure basis for these claims; who defines what works? what creates peace?; people are left standing on shifting sands:

a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall. (Matthew 7.26-27)

Conclusion

We implore you to seek for truth where it can be found — the Bible. It alone is true because it alone is authored by God himself; everything and everyone else will pass away but the word of the Lord stands forever. The Bible was written that you may know the truth, trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and have eternal life (John 20.31; Luke 1.3-4).